Tag: foster parents

Memoir of a Snail

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 February 2025
1 Comment on Memoir of a Snail
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Director – Adam Elliot – 2024 – Australia – Cert. 15 – 94m

*****

A young woman recounts her life story to her newly freed pet snail after her best friend dies – stop-frame animation marvel is out in UK cinemas on Friday, February 14th

Following a bravura title sequence which consists of a camera moving around (a scale model set of) detritus from a life, everything from soap on a rope to snail poison, with various objects bearing upon themselves various credits for the film, a young woman has tears in her eyes as her bedridden friend Pinky (voice: Jacki Weaver from Silver Linings Playbook, David O. Russell, 2012; Animal Kingdom, David Michod, 2010; Picnic at Hanging Rock, Peter Weir, 1975) breathes her last, briefly coming back to life to utter the legend, “potatoes”. But what can this word mean?

Taking her pet snail Sylvia (the name is painted on the back of the creature’s shell) out of a glass jar and setting her free to cross Pinky’s garden in the course of her subsequent narrative, the woman remembers her childhood down to the smallest detail, and starts to recount it to the liberated gastropod. She was born prematurely as Grace Prudence Pudel (voice: Sarah Snook from Steve Jobs, Danny Boyle, 2015; Predestination, The Spierig Brothers, 2014), shortly followed by her twin brother Gilbert (voice: Kodi Smit-McPhee from Maria, Pablo Larraín, 2024; The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion, 2021; The Congress, Ari Folman, 2013; ParaNorman, Chris Butler, Sam Fell, 2012).… Read the rest

Tags accountant, Adam Elliot, alcoholic, Alexander Esenarro Santafe, apple farm, Australia, bedridden, Bernie Clifford, Big Dipper, birthing, blood transfusion, book deposit, Canberra, cheap labour, child abuse, Child Services, childhood, Christian, church collection, cleft palette, cleft upper lip, correspondence, creating her story as a vehicle for his stop-frame puppetry, Dominique Pinon, drunk driver, eccentric, Eric Bana, exploitation, fairground, farmers, fathers and children, foster homes, foster parents, freedom, friend, fundamentalist, Garden Of Eden, gibberish, head sculptor, heroism, hoarding, hospital, Jacki Weaver, key parties, Kodi Smit-Mcphee, letters, library, love of fire, Magda Szubanski, marriage, Memoir of a Snail, memorabilia, molluscologist, music box, netball, Nick Cave, nutcase, orchard, ornament, orphan, orphanage, paraplegic, Paris, Paul Capsis, pet snail, potatoes, pray, premature birth, production line, religious, Sarah Snook, school bully, self-help books, separated, shoplifting, snail, snail poison, soap on a rope, stop-frame, stop-frame puppet, street artist, swingers, Tony Armstrong, toxic relationship, twins, volunteering, woodshed

Features Live Action Movies

The Girl
with the Needle
(Pigen med Nålen)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 9 January 2025
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with the Needle
(Pigen med Nålen)
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Director – Magnus Van Horn – 2024 – Denmark, Sweden, Poland – Cert. 15 – 123m

*****

A young Copenhagen woman’s attempts to escape poverty following the Great War lead her into a dark nightmare – Denmark’s entry for Best International Feature is out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, January 10th

In the darkness, faces writhing, superimposed on other faces. Katherine (Vic Carmen Sonne from Godland, 2022; Holiday, Isabella Eklöf, 2018), behind on the rent for her room by 14 months, is evicted. She works at a rag trade factory as a seamstress, where the owner Peter (Besir Zeciri) wants to be able to help her but cannot grant her widow’s supplement without proof of death of her husband, who has gone missing in the war. She manages to find herself cheaper lodgings. Sensing something more behind Peter’s kindness and an offer of a shoulder to rest on, Katherine has sex with him in an alley in broad daylight.

One day, her husband Jørgen (Joachim Fjelstrup) returns from the war, his face heavily disfigured. She takes him in but, unable to cope with his recurring nightmares, soon throws him out. Something similar is soon visited on her; Peter agrees to marry her, but when his mother (Benedikte Hansen from Borgen, TV series, 2010) explains that her son can do as he wants, but not with her money or her estate, he changes his mind (this, incidentally, is the same plot that drives Anora, Sean Baker, 2024).… Read the rest

Tags 1919, abortion, Academy Award, Academy Awards, Academy Awards 2024-25, Academy Awards 2025, Ava Knox Martin, Benedikte Hansen, Besir Zeciri, Best International Feature, Best International Feature 2024-25, Best International Feature 2025, black & white, board and lodging, business fee, business owner, casual labour, circus, community, Denmark, destitute, dismissed, eviction, facial disfiguration, factory, factory owner, fairy tale, fired, foster parents, freak show, husbands and wives, Joachim Fjelstrup, knitting needle, lack of social provision, lodgings, M.I.A., Magnus Van Horn, Michal Dymek, mothers and children, Oscar, Oscars, Oscars 2024-25, Oscars 2025, Poland, post-war, proof of death, public bath house, rag trade, recurring nightmare, redundant, rich and poor, sacked, seamstress, social provision, Sweden, sweetshop, Trine Dyrholm, true crime, Vic Carmen Sonne, war, wet nurse, widow, widow’s supplement, women’s health, World War I, World War One, WW1

Features Live Action Movies

Shazam!
Fury Of The Gods

Director – David F. Sandberg – 2023 – US – Cert. – 130m

***1/2

Three Daughters of Atlas enter present day Philadelphia to repossess a staff which contains power that has been stolen from them; immature teenager recast as adult superhero Shazam! and his six superhero companions must stop them – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 17th

Something of an oddity in the DC Comics canon, Shazam! concerns Philadelphia teenager Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who inadvertently absorbs superpower energy which enables him to transform into the adult superhero Shazam! (Zachary Levi) by merely uttering the word “Shazam!” However, despite the adult physique, he still thinks like a teenager. Outside of superhero life, he is one of seven orphans who, since the end of the original Shazam! (David F. Sandberg, 2019), have had the same thing happen to them. So, seven children, seven superheroes. And their two put-upon foster parents, Rosa and Victor Vásquez (Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews).

To be honest, I could take or leave the title character (as played by teenager Angel and adult Levi) but the other kids are likeable enough – at least to the extent that their characters are fleshed out here… and some are fleshed out far more than others in the narrative.… Read the rest